CHICAGO and NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, 120 Sports unveiled its second annual Millennials' Athlete Index, providing unique insights and ranking of the athletes mattering most to Millennials. With a 365-day-a-year commitment to focusing on the athletes most relevant and talked about by its target audience, Millennials, 120 Sports conducted this exclusive research in conjunction with Ranker, the leading digital media company for crowd sourced rankings and opinions, to produce an Index of the Top 40 athletes. 

120 Sports uses up-to-the-moment insight from consumer trends to shape the way it produces its daily live and on-demand programming, providing real-time data on what is resonating most with the Millennial audience on a daily basis.   Leveraging this information along with social analytics, 120 Sports and Ranker surveyed over 1,400 Millennials (defined as 18 to 34-year-olds) to determine the list of athletes most relevant to them.

Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors topped the 120 Sports Millennials' Athlete Index for the second year in a row while eighteen new athletes are represented on the 2016 list that did not make the 2015 Millennials' Athlete Index.

Athletes from nine major sports made this year's Index, including basketball, football, baseball, soccer, golf, hockey, tennis, NASCAR and UFC. Ninety-nine athletes were included in the overall survey for voters to rank.

The Top 10 are as follows:

2015 120 Sports Millennial Athlete Index Top 10

1) Stephen Curry, 27, NBA
2) J.J. Watt, 26, NFL
3) Mike Trout, 24, MLB
4) Alex Morgan, 26, USWNT
5) Cam Newton, 26, NFL*
6) Andrew McCutchen, 29, MLB*
7) Lionel Messi, 28, La Liga
8) Kris Bryant, 24, MLB*
9) Clayton Kershaw, 27, MLB
10) Antonio Brown, 27, NFL*

*New, not on 2015 index.

Breaking down the results by region, the top-rated athletes were Stephen Curry (West, South, Mountain regions), Alex Morgan and Mike Trout (Northeast region), and Jonathan Toews (Midwest).

The rankings provide additional insights and data points including:

• Most Athletes Overall - 10 NFL players.
• Most Athletes in Top 10 - 4 MLB players.
• Five female athletes in the Index, two in the Top 20.
• The oldest athlete on the list (Duncan, 39) and the youngest athlete on the list (Porzingis, 20) are both NBA players.
• Avg. Age of Top Ten - 26.4 years old.
• Youngest Avg. Age per League/Sport - NFL (26).  
• The 3 Youngest on the Index - Porzingis (20), Spieth (22), A. Davis (22).
• LeBron James fell 8 spots from the 2015 to 2016 Index. Kobe Bryant, ranked 23 this year, was not featured on the 2015 Index.
• Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, positions 19 and 39, respectively, on the 2015 Index, did not make the 2016 Index.

Throughout the past year, 120 Sports has released several sport-specific indexes including NFL, NHL and NBA editions, and will continue to release additional lists to reflect the most relevant and trending athletes to Millennials. 120 Sports chose to release the full Millennials' Athlete Index results today on the second annual 1.20 Sports Day (January 20^th).

On Ranker, voters could cast both positive and negative votes on the rank of athletes, sending their favorite athletes to the top, while voting athletes they may dislike lower on the list. To determine the top athletes, Ranker and 120 Sports used an algorithm designed to balance various dimensions of agreement, popularity and positivity.  The poll ran between Dec. 3, 2015 and Jan. 15, 2016.

The remainder of the Millennials' Athlete Index is as follows:

11. Rob Gronkowski, 26, NFL
12. Jimmy Butler, 26, NBA*
13. Ronda Rousey, 28, UFC*
14. Kevin Durant, 27, NBA
15. Jonathan Toews, 27, NHL
16. Luke Kuechly, 24, NFL*
17. Jordan Spieth, 22, PGA TOUR*
18. Kristaps Porzingis, 20, NBA*
19. Giancarlo Stanton, 26, MLB
20. Conor McGregor, 27, UFC*
21. Carli Lloyd, 33, USWNT*
22. Odell Beckham Jr., 23, NFL
23. Kobe Bryant, 37, NBA*
24. Jake Arrieta, 29, MLB*
25. Julio Jones, 26, NFL*
26. Serena Williams, 34, WTA*
27. Cristiano Ronaldo, 30, La Liga
28. Russell Westbrook, 27, NBA
29. Bryce Harper, 23, MLB*
30. LeBron James, 31, NBA
31. Russell Wilson, 27, NFL
32. Buster Posey, 28, MLB
33. Aaron Rodgers, 32, NFL
34. Le'Veon Bell, 23, NFL*
35. Rickie Fowler, 27, PGA TOUR
36. Patrick Kane, 27, NHL
37. Tim Duncan, 39, NBA
38. Anthony Davis, 22, NBA
39. Henrik Lundqvist, 33, NHL
40. Danica Patrick, 33, NASCAR*

*New, not on 2015 index.

About 120 Sports:

120 Sports is the ultimate destination for up-to-the-moment expert commentary on all trending sports topics.  The digital-only broadcast network offers 76 hours of live content, plus more than 1,200 on-demand video clips, each week. Equity partners in 120 Sports include Time Inc. /Sports Illustrated, MLBAM, the NHL, the PGA TOUR, Campus Insiders and Silver Chalice.

To learn more about 120 Sports, visit http://www.120sports.com or follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/120Sports and Twitter https://twitter.com/120Sports.

About Ranker:
Ranker is the #1 online destination for broad, opinion-based, crowd sourced rankings of everything. The company's technology is centered on user engagement, turning its lists into the "best possible rankings" based on the wisdom of crowds.

A Quantcast Top 100 site, Ranker attracts more than 23 million monthly unique visitors. As a result, Ranker has one of the world's largest databases of opinions with more than 100 million votes gathered on 50,000 items. Follow Ranker on Facebook at facebook.com/Ranker and on Twitter @Ranker.

SOURCE 120 Sports

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